Naya Aggro Deck with 4 Domri Rade

February 19, 2013 | Posted by Dee

Domri Rade proved himself to be a strong card in Standard with a top four finish this past weekend at Pro Tour Gatecrash. Eric Froehlich played four copies of the planeswalker in his fourth place Naya, or Red/White/Green, Aggro deck.

To make Domri Rade better, Eric played creatures that interact well with the planeswalker’s fight ability. The deck had 4 Gyre Sage, 4 Flinthoof Boar, 4 Loxodon Smiter, and 4 Boros Reckoner. These creatures are good at fighting because they are usually bigger than other creatures with the same mana cost.

Also, Eric played 28 creatures to have a decent chance of getting card advantage from Domri Rade’s first ability.

Deck Analysis

This is an aggro deck that’s designed to beat up on other aggro decks. Gatecrash gave us powerful aggro cards like Experiment One and Boros Reckoner so aggro decks grew in popularity after the card set was released.

With his fight ability, Domri Rade is a big reason why this deck dominates other aggro decks. Loxodon Smiter is already a beefy blocker but when you fight with him, he gets even better against fast decks.

Boros Reckoner in particular is awesome with Domri Rade. When you fight with him, you can often kill two creatures. For example, let’s say you’re facing down a Rakdos Cackler and an Ash Zealot. If you fight one of them with Boros Reckoner, he will take damage which you can redirect to kill the other creature.

Flinthoof Boar is a solid fight creature. He’s often a 3/3 for two mana because of the 10 Mountain cards. When fighting, a 3/3 body is great at taking out creatures like Augur of Bolas and Silverblade Paladin. (Double strike only works in combat. It doesn’t work in fights.)

Gyre Sage starts out only as a 1/2 for two mana but all the other creatures evolve her to 2/3 and you have many creatures that can evolve her to 3/4. 2/3 and 3/4 are good bodies for fighting. You can even evolve Gyre Sage to 4/5 and 5/6 with Thragtusk and Thundermaw Hellkite so that she can take down bigger creatures.

You can take advantage of Gyre Sage’s mana ability by casting Thragtusk and Thundermaw Hellkite one turn early. Also, Gyre Sage is useful for casting an overload Mizzium Mortars.

Eric was asked why he chose the deck. He said he liked that it was aggressive like Mono Red Aggro but unlike that deck, it had more staying power. For example, you’ve got Domri Rade’s +1 ability to recover from a Supreme Verdict or Terminus. Also, Thundermaw Hellkite is a great card for beating Thragtusk.

In the sideboard, the most interesting card is probably Pacifism. The enchantment is great at dealing with other Boros Reckoners as long as your opponent is not playing Restoration Angel.

Deck Price Tag

Here’s the price tag of the deck. I used the prices of a popular online store.